I want this site to occasionally bring you business ideas from successful people outside the business world. So I invited Barry Libert, author of Barack, Inc., to teach what he learned from studying Barack Obama's winning campaign.

The FULL program

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Video excerpts

About Barry Libert

Barry Libert is the author of Barack, Inc, and the Chairman and CEO of Mzinga, a provider of enterprise social media and learning solutions.

A few lessons from Barack, Inc.

Create a unified online platform

When businesses cobble together tools from multiple services, they often require users to register before each different tool -- forums, chat, etc. In comparison, Obama's web site was a hit because its unified platform only required users to register once.

Admit mistakes, publicly

I asked Barry what he thought United Airlines should do about Dave Carroll, the musician who wrote the web hit song, "United Breaks Guitars," because of what the airline did to his $3,500 instrument. He suggested that United might want to sing an apology and post it online.

That's in keeping with Barry's observation that when Obama's campaign labeled Hillary Clinton "(D-Punjab)" instead of "(D-New York)" -- a snide reference to her support of India -- Obama sat down his staffers and told them to end their cheap shots.

Get your supporters to promote you

Before Obama showed up to public events, his staffers asked the crowds at the events to get on their mobile phones and recruit friends to come to the event.

When you lose, evaluate

The Texas primary was a huge prize in the Democratic primary so the Obama campaign spent $20 million trying to capture it -- only to lose to Hillary Clinton. "I'm not yelling at you guys," he told his staffers. Instead, they evaluated their mistakes and discussed how to avoid them next time.

When you're winning, stay focused

Obama raised $639 million, nearly twice McCain's war chest of $335 million. The financial advantage was so overwhelming, that there was concern his campaign would get overconfident. So he sent out a warning to his people, invoking the surprise defeat by Clinton early in the primary, "For those of you who are feeling giddy or cocky or think this is all set, I have just two words for you: New Hampshire."

Exude confidence

Before hiring Patrick Gaspard as his political director, Obama told him, "I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna [sic] think I'm a better political director than my political director."

Full program includes

- Social media strategies that work in politics and will work in your business.

- A discussion about whether writing a book about a Democratic politician might turn off Barry's Republican clients.

- A discussion about wether remaining calm in business might cause people to think you're a wuss -- and how to avoid looking weak by keeping your cool.

Suggested comments

- Why do you think Obama won the election?

- What lessons did you learn from the Obama campaign? What did you learn from the other candidates?

- How did the audio and video turn out on this one?

[Thank you Rosie Bernardo proof-reading this.]